MR ROOSEVELT'S "AFRICAN GAME TRAILS"*
IN these greatest of the world's great
hunting grounds there are mountain
peaks whose snows are dazzling
under the equatorial sun; swamps where
the slime oozes and bubbles and festers in
the steaming heat; lakes like seas; skies
that burn above deserts where the iron
desolation is shrouded from view by the
wavering mockery of the mirage; vast
grassy plains where palms and thorn
trees fringe the dwindling streams;
mighty rivers rushing out of the heart
of the continent through the sadness of
endless marshes; forests of gorgeous
that feed on the flesh of man, and among
the lower things that crawl, and fly, and
sting, and bite, he finds swarming foes
far more evil and deadly than any beast
or reptile-foes that kill his crops and
his cattle; foes before which he him
self perishes in his hundreds of thou
sands.
"The land teems with beasts of the
chase, infinite in number and incredible
in variety. It holds the fiercest beasts
of ravin, and the fleetest and most timid
of those beings that live in undying fear
of talon and fang. It holds the largest
From "African Game Trails," by Theodore Roosevelt. Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons
THE MONITOR LIZARD ROBBING A CROCODILE'S NEST
From a photograph by J. Alden Loring
beauty, where death broods in the dark
and silent depths.
"There are regions as healthy as the
northland, and other regions, radiant
with bright-hued flowers, birds, and but
terflies, odorous with sweet and heavy
scents, but treacherous in their beauty
and sinister to human life. On the land
and in the water there are dread brutes
and the smallest of hoofed animals. It
holds the mightiest creatures that tread
the earth or swim in its rivers; it also
holds distant kinfolk of these same crea
tures, no bigger than woodchucks, which
dwell in crannies of the rocks and in the
treetops.
There are antelope smaller
than hares, and antelope larger than
oxen. There are creatures which are the
*African Game Trails. An account of the African wanderings of an American Hunter
Naturalist. By Theodore Roosevelt. With illustrations from photographs by Kermit Roose
velt and other members of the Expedition, and from drawings by Philip R. Goodwin. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1910. $4.00 net.